Chapter 30
Nadja had only teleported a few times in her existence, the last time being when she was banished to Earth from Hell. There was always this nauseating slide that she didn’t think she’d ever get used to, accompanied by pressure in her ears and a sensation of being outside of her body.
It was only a handful of seconds, but it was enough that Nadja’s eyes were squeezed tightly shut when they arrived. Halphas held her steady, his hands on her biceps, while she breathed deeply through her nose, trying to convince her rioting stomach to keep its contents where they were.
“You’re earlier than I expected,” she heard Magda say from behind her and jumped.
Nadja opened her eyes and saw that Halphas had taken her to her office. Magda sat in one of the oatmeal-colored armchairs. Walter, the Brightling Beetle, flew clumsily around her head before dropping down to the coffee table, where Magda had put a sugar cube in a tea saucer.
Where had she gotten the sugar cube? Where had she gotten the tea saucer? More importantly, how the hell had she gotten into Nadja’s office? And how did she know—
“You know better than to ask me how I know, honey. Just know that I know,” Magda said with a chuckle. “Now, who is this tall drink of water? I don’t believe we’ve met.”
She didn’t stand, but extended her arm up, reminding Nadja very much of a queen giving one of her subjects permission to kiss the royal hand.
Halphas grinned and bowed chivalrously before taking her hand and brushing his lips over Magda’s knuckles.
“I’m Halphas, Earl of Stonewall, Commander of the Twenty-Six Legions, Lord of the Stonebreakers, and Supply Chain and Munitions Manager for the realm of Hell.”
“Supply Chain and Munitions,” Magda repeated with an eyebrow in her hairline. “How very modern.”
If Nadja didn’t know better, she’d think Halphas was blushing.
“Stonebreaker,” Magda said, looking at Nadja now. “She’s one of your people?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, straightening.
“Did you fuck her?” Magda asked, cocking her head to the side. and Nadja derived the tiniest bit of pleasure from seeing Halphas’s jaw drop. It wasn’t often that someone knocked him off kilter. Leave it to Magda.
“It’s not like that,” Halphas answered quickly. “It’s never been like that. She’s like my little sister. I wouldn’t—I haven’t—I would never—”
“Don’t blow a fuse now, baby, I’m just giving you shit,” Magda said, smiling wide with all of her teeth. She turned to look at Nadja. “How are you, honey?”
Nadja’s body went cold at the same time scalding hot tears sprang to her eyes. She felt her bottom lip tremble and bit it to make it stop.
“You look like hell,” Magda said. “Hubert, do you mind giving us the room?”
Halphas blushed for real that time and looked at Nadja. “I’ve got to get back anyway. But I’d—I’d love to visit sometime. If you want that.”
Nadja smiled weakly, her cheeks hot and aching. “I’d like that. As long as you promise not to reap anyone while you’re here. This is my community.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “It’s getting too crowded back home anyway. The traffic alone is hell.”
If she wasn’t mistaken, his eyes looked remarkably bright, almost as if he were on the verge of tears as well.
But that was impossible. He was Halphas.
Earls of Hell didn’t cry. He wrapped her up in a bear hug, lifting her feet of the ground and cracking her back.
“You take care of yourself, kiddo. And if you need me for anything, ever, you know how to summon me.”
“Tick tock, Hubert,” Magda said, and Halphas released her.
He doffed an imaginary cap at Magda. “It was a pleasure meeting you…”
“Magda,” she offered.
“Magda,” Halphas repeated. “Until next time, ladies.”
The pressure in the room changed for a moment as he disappeared, buffeting Walter off of his sugar cube an inch before dropping him back. Nadja tried popping her ears again, and mercifully, they obeyed.
“I’m going to ask you again now that we’re alone. How are you?”
Nadja went to sit in the opposite chair. Funny enough, Magda was sitting in Nadja’s chair, the chair she occupied during therapy sessions, while Nadja was sitting in the client chair.
“I’m miserable,” she said, quite miserably, finally letting the tears fall.
“Of course you are.”
From somewhere, Magda produced a travel mug and slid it across the coffee table toward Nadja.
It was one of Nadja’s from home, a bright blue cup that said A Therapy Session a Day Keeps the “I Should Start a Podcast” Away in white letters.
She took it in her hands and smelled tea.
It was hot, but not so hot that she couldn’t drink it, and she took a grateful sip.
“How did you know I’d be here?” Nadja asked.
“My love, you know I can’t answer that. I just did.”
Nadja nodded just as Walter burped, a sound far louder than such a small creature should have been capable of making.
“I see he’s back with you,” Nadja said, nodding at Walter.
“He was on loan.”
“Loan? Robbie was borrowing him?”
Magda rocked her head from side to side in that way she did when she didn’t want to not answer a question but had no intention of giving a complete answer either.
“In a way. I may have lied. Just a little white lie. But I told him that I needed him to look after Walter for me for a few weeks.
“Why? You don’t travel.”
Magda grinned. “I didn’t need him to watch Walter. I needed Walter to watch him.”
“What do you mean?” Nadja asked, taking another sip. Magda was something of an herbalist, among all the other things she was, and her teas were legendary, sweetened with the honey from the bees in her backyard.
“Let’s just say that Walter was keeping an eye on Robbie for me, monitoring any… major changes, shall we say?”
“So you knew. You knew he was a werewolf?”
Magda arched a brow at her, as if to say, “Duh.”
“So why did you need Walter?”
“To know when to send him to you, of course.”
Nadja froze. She didn’t know what Magda was. She’d been puzzling over that question for decades with no answer. But whatever Magda was, she knew far more than she ought. Always. Usually long before events happened. It made her a meddlesome terror sometimes.
“But you didn’t send him to me. Hank did.”
Magda sighed, that eyebrow creeping higher. “And who do you think told Hank to send him to you?”
“Esther,” Nadja deadpanned.
“You’re no fun, you know that? Who do you think planted the seed in Esther’s beautiful technicolor brain that Robbie might benefit from some therapy?”
“You’re a menace, Magda,” Nadja said flatly.
Magda laughed, a bright sound in the lamp-lit office. “Maybe I am. But if you can’t be a bit of a menace after as long as I’ve been around, what’s the point? And besides, I didn’t do anything but coax things into motion at the right time.”
A flicker of anger sparked to life in Nadja’s chest. She was used to Magda’s knowing and meddling.
She’d been watching it from the wings for five decades with the sort of harried amusement possessed by someone watching karaoke done badly.
Everything had always worked out in the end.
But she’d never been on the stage before, never had her fate directed by Magda’s hand before now.
It wasn’t as amusing to be at the center because everything had most certainly not worked out this time.
“You should have told him.”
Magda nodded, relaxing back in her chair. “Maybe I should have. But I think that would have scared him.”
“Scared him worse than losing control of his body? Than thinking he was dying? Than me kidnapping him?” Nadja shouted. “Be serious, Magda!”
Magda pursed her lips but didn’t defend herself.
“If you didn’t think he would handle the news well, you at least should have told me,” Nadja said, collapsing back in the chair and feeling as if her ribcage were splintering.
The silence lingered between them, broken only when Walter began to snore. Magda took a long, slow sip from her own mug, her eyes never leaving Nadja’s.
“So you’re miserable.”
“Of course I am.”
“You love him,” Magda said. It wasn’t a question.
Nadja felt as if her throat was closing up, swallowing felt impossible.
“Yeah,” she said, reaching for the tea again.
“And he loves you,” she said.
“I don’t know,” Nadja answered, the sob breaking free from her throat.
“He loves you.”
“It’s not that simple,” Nadja protested.
“It’s not that complicated either.”
“I’m not his fated mate,” Nadja said miserably.
“Oh,” Magda said. Oh. The sound someone might make when learning that the menu board was wrong at the sandwich shop and that the special wasn’t turkey and Swiss but turkey and cheddar. Oh.
Oh.
Nadja felt the anger rising like a storm surge now, far from the flicker it had been, rushing up from her guts in a terrifying wave before bursting through her mouth.
“He would have known. He would have known that I was his fated mate and he didn’t.
So I must not be. Okay? I’m not his fated mate and I couldn’t stay there, building a life with him, giving up my whole life here, only for him to meet this magical one and leave me in the dust! I couldn’t do it!”
Magda nodded, her gaze turned down somewhat, as if she were pondering. But for some reason, this made Najda even more angry. She shot to her feet, staring down at the old woman. Nadja pointed her finger.
“You should have told him. You should have told him what he was. There are other packs. Someone would have taken him in. And then I never would have met him. I never would have told an entire wolf pack that I was his fucking mate to save him, for fuck’s sake.
I would never have gotten to know him or fed from him or—”
Fallen in love with him.
It was right there on the tip of her tongue, dangling from the precipice, but she couldn’t say it again.
“My whole life has been pain and wanting. Hunger. Do you know what hunger does to a person, Magda? It makes them desperate. And I had a system. I’d finally figured out how to feed without wanting to die.
It wasn’t much, but it was enough. But then I had to meet him and he had to be so wonderful and he had to feed me and now I know what it’s like to be full.
I know what it’s like to be satisfied and now I’ll never be satisfied again! ”
She was screaming, her anger its own character in the scene, visceral and raw and agonizing.
“You ruined my life, Magda Nutter! I was just fine before you sent him here. And now I’ll never be fine again.”
Her breath was heaving in and out of her chest, her ribs aching from the restrained sobs and how wide her lungs were expanding as she gasped for air, for calm, for anything to make it hurt less.
Magda rose to her feet and skirted the coffee table to stand in front of Nadja. She wrapped her arms tightly around Nadja’s waist, bringing her close against her own body. The dam broke loose then, Nadja’s tears falling fast and hot onto Magda’s shoulder as Nadja clung to her.
“You’re so brave, my love,” Magda crooned. “Even when you’re scared shitless.”
“I’m not scared,” Nadja muttered into the wool of Magda’s sweater.
Magda pulled back, holding Nadja’s shoulders in her gnarled hands, and looked her in the eye. “Of course you are. That’s why you left him. You’re scared of having everything only to have it taken away from you.”
“Wouldn’t you be?” Nadja asked, wiping at her tears with the backs of her hands.
“Oh, sure. Fear is human. It’s more than human, actually. It’s animal. It’s the most basic instinct we have. Even more basic than love. It’s the quickest to rise within us.”
Nadja nodded. She was a therapist, for gods’ sake. She knew about human behavior.
“But fear makes us make stupid choices, honey.”
Nadja opened her mouth to argue but stopped when Magda placed a gentle finger against her lips.
“Nope. Stop talking. I’m going to tell you something, and I want you to hear it. Okay?”
Nadja nodded, Magda’s finger still pressing against her lips. Magda dropped her hand.
“You made a stupid choice because you got scared. Fortunately for you, it ain’t over ’til it’s over.”
“It’s over, Magda,” Nadja said, her voice hoarse from crying and shouting, from life.
But Magda only smiled. She turned and picked up the tea saucer with the sleeping Walter and tucked both carefully into the bottom of her purse. She reached for her coat and slipped it over her arms before walking to the door. Nadja felt frozen, as if her feet had fused with the floor.
Magda paused at the door to the office, her hand on the knob, and turned to Nadja.
“I missed you, honey. It’s been you and me for a long time.”
That brought a small smile to Nadja’s face, something that would have felt impossible had she said anything else.
“It’s still you and me,” Nadja said.
Magda smiled sadly and shook her head. “Come on, honey. You can drive me home.”
Nadja nodded and followed Magda out into the night, the parking lot illuminated by the biggest full moon she’d ever seen, so heavy and huge in the sky that it looked like it could swallow her whole.
She took Magda home and drove to her own house, a little bungalow on a quiet street.
Even though the air was cold, she sat on the front porch, looking at the moon, until it rose so high that she couldn’t see it anymore without leaving the safe cover of her porch, until the shadows it cast were short and deep.
Only then did she unlock her house and go inside, surprised by the silence, even though her house had always been silent.
Dust motes floated in moonlight from the window, and she sat down heavily on her small sectional couch, wishing with all her might that it was an old wood frame sofa instead and that Robbie would walk in the door and tell her that she’d made a mistake.
But she hadn’t and he didn’t.
And so, with an emptiness in her chest that was almost painful, she laid down on the couch, dragged a crocheted afghan over herself, and did the only thing that she could do.
She slept.